Todd Jacobson and Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
10/10/2014
The Obama Administration is taking a hard look at whether it needs to replace the air-launched cruise missile, outgoing Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical & Biological Defense Programs Andrew Weber told reporters earlier this week as he prepared to leave his position after five years. The large price tag to modernize the nation’s nuclear deterrent over the next two decades has forced the Administration to examine whether there could be “tradeoffs” in the current modernization plan, Weber said. He specifically singled out the long-range standoff (LRSO) weapon, which would replace the air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) and is a top priority for the Air Force, Global Strike Command chief Lt. Gen. Stephen Wilson said this week. “The size of the bow wave causes us to have to take a hard look at the priorities,” said Weber, who left the Pentagon Oct. 8 to serve as new State Department Ebola Coordinator Nancy Powell’s deputy. “What are the tradeoffs? Is that current strategy affordable and executable? Or does it need to be modified?”
The Air Force has said the LRSO is imperative to replace the ALCM, but Weber noted that the bomber leg of the nuclear triad could be preserved with only the B61-12 gravity bomb, which is currently being refurbished. “That’s a decision that has to be informed by the budget realities but with the B61-12 we will have that bomber leg,” Weber said. “It’s a question: Do you need both the gravity bomb and the cruise missile or could we live with perhaps delaying or foregoing the follow-on to the ALCM? These are the kinds of questions we’re examining within all of the legs of the triad.”
Global Strike Command Chief Advocates for LRSO
Speaking this week at an event sponsored by the Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, Wilson reiterated his stance that a modernized U.S. long-range strike capability is crucial for national security, even in a constrained and competitive budget environment. “As our adversaries’ technology improves, as the capability of their integrated air defenses improves, we absolutely have to have a penetrating bomber that will be able to hold any target on the planet at risk. It’s essential,” he said. “Our ALCMs, fielded in the mid-‘80s, designed to last for 10 years, were supposed to be replaced in 1996, and here we are in 2015 with still having ALCM, and it needs to last another 15 years until we get the replacement on board. So we’re working hard on that.”
Wilson said an LRSO capability could impose extensive economic costs on enemies, whose bombers must match the advanced missile capacity that the LRSO presents. “If I take a bomber, and I put standoff cruise missiles on it, in essence, it becomes very much like a sub. It’s got close to the same magazine capacity of a sub,” he said. “So once I generate a bomber with standoff cruise missiles, it becomes a significant deterrent for any adversary. We often forget that. It possesses the same firepower, in essence, as a sub that we can position whenever and wherever we want, and it becomes a very strong deterrent. So I’m a strong proponent of being able to modernize our standoff missile capability.”
While Wilson cited the need to modernize the 32-year-old ALCM before tinkering with the LRSO’s range of capabilities, he said he would support a conventional version of the LRSO, much like the conventional variant of the ALCM. “And that, to me, again, makes a lot of sense because I’m able to buy in scale and quantity and able to drive costs down, and that seems to me to make a lot of sense,” he said.
Wilson: F-35 Nuclear Capability Important
While former Air Force Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz early this year said the Air Force should abandon plans to incorporate a nuclear capability in the F-35 without a higher financial commitment from European allies, Wilson said he supported plans for the aircraft’s nuclear capability. “I think that for our [dual-capable] airplanes, and the F-35 being the critical one in the future, it will be important that we keep that [nuclear] capability.”
Wilson said he is a “great admirer” of Schwartz but his opinion diverged from that of the former chief of staff, who had said he’d advocate re-investing any F-35 savings toward the long-range strike bomber. The Fiscal Year 2014 omnibus funding bill that Congress enacted in January omitted the $10 million that the Defense Department asked for to explore fitting the updated B61 variant onto the F-35, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. The F-35 could accommodate the future B61-12 warhead variant, whose First Production Unit is scheduled for completion in 2020, top Air Force officials said at a September AFA conference.
B-2 DMS a Necessity Despite Sequestration
While Wilson said the impact of a sequestered budget would “be felt throughout our Air Force,” he also signaled confidence that the service would continue investing in key technologies that buoy the bomber and ground-based legs of the nuclear triad, saying he has “got to have” the defense and modernization suite for the B-2. He cited the need to continue acquiring solid-state rocket motors for intercontinental ballistic missiles, and to procure an updated B-2 DMS, which would allow the bomber to penetrate through the 2020s. “It’s not an inexpensive modernization program,” he said, “but it’s absolutely vital to the B-2.”
Wilson: LRSB Plans Shouldn’t ‘Break Our Bank’
Wilson also spoke about the in-progress long-range strike bomber (LRSB) at the Mitchell Institute event, an aircraft he called “absolutely essential for warfare in the future,” and expressed optimism that Global Strike Command could procure the planes for a reasonable cost. “We’ve got a good plan going forward for LRSB,” Wilson said. “We can do it smartly, not break our bank to be able to bring forward the LRSB. But I do think we’re going to be able to have to buy them in sufficient quantity and numbers.” Officials plan to roll out the LRSB in the mid-2020s, about 15 years before the planned 2040 retirement of the B52 and about 30 years before the planned retirement of the B-2.
Wilson said the command should start its procurement of the LRSB at 100 units. “I start with a high number as my low end and go up from there, and I think it’ll be vital for our nation,” he said. “I think it’s important for the future and as I talked about, speed, range, payload and stealth, and the numbers we have. I think numbers matter.” Wilson cautioned against taking a scaled-back approach such as the one taken 25 years ago with the B-2. “We as a nation cannot do what we did with the B-2, and the B-2 was an amazing airplane, and is an amazing airplane. We just didn’t buy enough of them,” he said. Calling the LRSB “absolutely essential for warfare in the future,” Wilson said plans for the bomber’s nuclear capability would be incorporated from its construction start date, and the aircraft would become nuclear-certified two years after its conventional IOC.
